April 28, 2021
Hailee Nail learned her baby had spina bifida on Aug. 13, 2020, when she saw her obstetrician in Tulsa, Okla., for her 20-week anatomy scan. “My OB/GYN told me that it would require surgery and gave me the names of several centers, but he wanted me to go to Houston,” she says.
April 22, 2021
Pamela Alvarez exudes gratitude. Like most parents, she and her husband, Mike, are grateful to have healthy children, but the couple are also eternally grateful for the generous kidney donor who gave their younger son, Matthew, a second chance.
April 22, 2021
In April 2020, Keisha Howell and David Hackworth got the call they’d been waiting for. “It was about 11 o’clock at night, and a nurse from the Transplant Center called and said, ‘We have a match for Derek.’ I packed up Derek and headed straight there,” says Keisha.
February 9, 2021
Kemberlee Burgert's baby was diagnosed with Ebstein anomaly, a rare congenital heart defect in which the tricuspid valve, the valve between the upper right chamber (right atrium) and the lower right chamber (right ventricle), isn’t formed properly, allowing blood to leak back into the right atriu...
February 9, 2021
At her 8-week maternity check-up, Chanelle Smith and her husband, Patrick, were surprised and delighted to learn that Chanelle was carrying identical twins. At 28 weeks, Dr. Ramos identified a small hole in the heart of one of the babies. Additional tests revealed that the baby suffered from a co...
January 27, 2021
Eight-year-old David Martinez is finally free of the intravenous (IV) tube through which he has received essential nourishment since birth. His team of physicians at McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) and Children’s Memorial Hermann Hosp...
October 20, 2020
Melody and Doug Pohla have much to be proud of and thankful for. Their three sons, Nicholas, 17, Nathan, 15, and Daniel, 12, are all bright, active and extremely accomplished young men, each in his own right. Their firstborn, Nicholas, earned his first Tae Kwando black belt when we was 8 years ol...
July 7, 2020
When their unborn son was diagnosed with a rare and potentially life-threatening congenital birth defect, Carrie and Jordan Farrar knew they needed to find the experts, and fast. Fortunately, the couple from Tyler, Texas, was referred to The Fetal Center at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital. T...
June 30, 2020
Aryah plays basketball. She cheerleads. She rides horses. She jumps on the trampoline and loves water slides. “She’s ahead of the curve for her age,” says Courtney. But that wasn’t always the case. Before Aryah was born, Courtney and her husband, Robert, learned that their baby had congenital dia...
April 3, 2020
Christine and Blake Dugger learned they were pregnant with twins in December, 2017. “The entire pregnancy was a surprise,” Christine Dugger says. “We have two older daughters, who were six and three at the time, and we were very much not planning on having more children, but whe...
April 1, 2020
When Sophia was 6 or 7, her knees started to bow. At around age 8, she began experiencing knee and ankle pain. That’s when Leanne took her to see Dr. Younas, a pediatric orthopedic and scoliosis surgeon affiliated with Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital and an associate professor in the Departm...
August 14, 2019
Gage Hulse is having the time of his life. The 19-year-old basketball star from Huffman, Texas, recently graduated from high school and is college bound on a full-ride athletic scholarship. During his senior year, he led his team, the Huffman Falcons, to a record-breaking season and a district ch...
April 22, 2019
During her 20-week ultrasound, Savannah’s obstetrician diagnosed that her unborn baby’s heart was abnormally small and referred her to a maternal fetal medicine specialist. The specialist ordered a dedicated fetal echocardiogram (“echo”), a specialized ultrasound of the fe...
February 6, 2019
When Brittany Pineda learned she was pregnant with her fourth child, she knew she would go to The Fetal Center at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston for pregnancy care.
January 7, 2019
Aubree was diagnosed as a baby with spastic triplegic cerebral palsy. In her case, both her legs and her left arm had spasticity – a condition that made her affected limbs rigid and stiff. Because of the spasticity, Aubree has had physical therapy since she was a baby to help manage it. She has n...
August 31, 2018
Thirteen-year-old Grayson likes typical kid things – basketball, taekwondo, running, pizza and birthday cake. For Grayson, these things, which a “typical” kid might take for granted, carry a potential danger. Without proactive management of his insulin intake, too much physical exertion can send ...
August 7, 2018
When Natalie’s unborn baby daughter, Mila Grace, was diagnosed with spina bifida in utero, Natalie and her husband, Kevin, were stunned. After a routine ultrasound done just a week earlier, her obstetrician suspected that one of Mila Grace’s feet was clubbed and referred Natalie to a ...
August 7, 2018
A well-orchestrated chain of events saved the life of Caleb, a newborn with a rare and very serious congenital (present at birth) heart defect. Fortunately, that chain was populated by an experienced and collaborative team who worked together seamlessly to diagnose, transport and treat the baby. ...
August 7, 2018
At three-and-a-half months old, Beau made Texas medical history when the hole in his tiny heart was closed with the help of a specialized, minimally invasive surgical technique offered at Children’s Heart Institute at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital. Jessica and Andrew learned th...
July 5, 2018
A double bounce on a trampoline at her brother’s birthday party sent 11-year-old Lexi spiraling out of control, landing hard on her right leg. Thankfully, Lexi would end up in the skilled hands of Lindsay Crawford, MD, an affiliated pediatric orthopedic surgeon at McGovern Medical School at UTHea...
May 31, 2018
Fourteen-year-old Chadrick, who plays outside linebacker for his school’s football team, struggled with hip soreness and stiffness for months, especially when engaging in physical activities. He took anti-inflammatories and iced his hip, but the pain and stiffness kept coming back. When his fathe...
May 9, 2018
Cameron is on the “A” honor roll in his fifth-grade class, a significant achievement for any kid. Cameron is not just any kid. He is a survivor. At 10 years of age, Cameron has already undergone 24 surgical procedures. Cameron was diagnosed with an extremely rare genetic condition known as Mandib...
February 23, 2018
After year's of different diagnoses, Camden's breathing and chest pains were worsening until the doctors at Children's Memorial Hermann stepped in and got him the diagnosis and treatment he needed. Camden was diagnosed with pectus excavatum, also known as funnel chest, the most common congenital ...
February 8, 2018
Fourteen-year-old Mina is a champion. Every day, she overcomes obstacles to pursue her lifelong goal of becoming a world-class gymnast. But recently, despite her hard work and fierce determination to be the best, Mina almost met her match. Mina was born with a venous malformation on her right che...
February 2, 2018
Hayes appeared to be a perfectly healthy newborn. Three hours after birth, however, a nurse who was listening to his heart through a stethoscope heard an abnormal heart sound – a heart murmur – indicating a possible heart problem. A cardiologist ordered an echocardiogram (diagnostic cardiac ultra...
January 8, 2018
Courtney and Robert both remember the feeling of pure joy in January 2016 when finding out they were pregnant with their second child – a baby girl – after three years of trying. Their happiness soon gave way to worry, though, when Courtney’s obstetrician said her ultrasound sca...
January 8, 2018
As fall of 2011 approached, Jennifer Sailors was 40 years old and in the prime of her life. Between working and having a family, Jennifer was busy, but she was used to that. Then one day, she realized she was feeling run-down. “I thought, gosh I’m really tired,” she remembers. &...
January 7, 2018
Already parents of two, the Agees knew this pregnancy was going to be a little more complicated than the others—but they didn’t yet realize it would mean a move back to Texas. It was when the Agees’ identical twins were 23 weeks along that the couple discovered they were sufferi...
January 7, 2018
Until Christmas Day in 2010, DaVonne Christopher’s first pregnancy had been rather unremarkable. But that evening, during dinner, she went into labor, giving birth to son Eli the following day. Though no complications occurred during the delivery itself, the newborn was quickly whisked away by me...
January 7, 2018
On April 21, 2014, Leah Yeglin gave birth to her son, Jacob. Moments later, she began to sense something was wrong – and soon learned her intuition was right. A nurse informed her that Jacob had a cleft lip but, thankfully, was otherwise healthy. “It was a shock,” Yeglin remembers. “I thought tha...
January 7, 2018
It was November 2014, and Mya Aguilar was three months into her eighth-grade year. She had been called down to the school nurse for an annual checkup. When the school nurse asked Mya to bend over and touch her toes, she noticed something wrong with the eighth-grader’s back. Mya’s mother, Geneva A...
January 5, 2018
Being a teenager is often difficult and confusing. For Dylan Palomino, that was compounded by his discovery, at age 14, that he had the genetic condition known as pectus excavatum, which causes the breastbone to sink into the chest, sometimes dramatically. “I was in junior high, a time when you’r...
January 5, 2018
Amy Sager was 20 weeks pregnant with her second child when, during a routine ultrasound, she found out she was carrying a boy. But for Sager and her husband, Kevin, what should have been a joyous moment soon gave way to concern. The baby’s heart, the obstetrician informed them, was pushed to the ...
January 4, 2018
It was 6 a.m. on a summer morning when it happened: 3-year-old Max Mullervy, asleep next to his mother, Laura, rolled off the bed. He missed the cushions she had placed on the floor, and on the way down, hit his eye on the side table. Max’s scream woke his mom with a start. “It was a ...
January 3, 2018
Chloe spent months in the offices of a local neurologist and neurosurgeon as they tried to determine what was wrong. Finally, one of them referred her to Dr. Ian Butler, a pediatric neurologist affiliated with Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital, about her many health concerns: headaches, lack o...
January 3, 2018
When a very rare brain condition caused fourth-grader Lauren Lackey to slip into a coma, her parents, Sandy and Mark Lackey hate to think what would have happened to their daughter if the ambulance had not made the long drive to Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital. Mark remembers feeling i...
January 2, 2018
For many years, Dr. Mary Austin could count on one hand the people who knew. There was her close friend through middle school, who helped her pee by pushing on her lower abdomen. Years later, during her surgical training at Vanderbilt University, she confided in a mentor. Her husband knew, of cou...
December 28, 2017
By the time he was 3 months old, Wesley’s seizures were occurring up to 55 times a day — every minute or two while he was awake, and every 10 to 15 minutes when he slept. His doctor prescribed him nine different medications over the course of three months, but none provided long-lasting relief. D...
December 7, 2017
Meghann had planned a natural home birth for her first child, Elizabeth Caroline (“Lizzy”). When she started having abdominal pains at 23 weeks, her midwife ordered lab tests that came back normal. A week before Lizzy was born on January 18, 2013, severe abdominal pain sent Meghann to...
November 28, 2017
When Andrea was 15, a CT scan showed an unusually large, dense mass in the back part of her brain - with a buildup of fluid. The imaging study revealed an unusually large, dense mass in the posterior fossa - the lower back of the skull containing the brain stem and cerebellum- with obstructive hy...
November 27, 2017
When Iris finally got her wish, an ultrasound revealed not one, but two heartbeats. Twins. Identical twins, in fact. Iris and her husband were elated. But the ultrasound indicated a potential problem, and her doctor referred her to The Fetal Center at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital.&n...
November 16, 2017
A small bump on the head during a game at his elementary school in Lufkin, Texas – at first Landon Courtney’s injury seemed minor. The seven-year-old was playing four corners in his P.E. class in early March 2016 when his feet got tangled with a classmate’s. He fell to the gym f...
November 16, 2017
A rare condition that occurs in 1 in 2,500 babies born in the United States, craniosynostosis changes the growth pattern of the skull by premature fusion of its fibrous sutures. Robert is among the 40 percent to 60 percent of cases in which the sagittal suture fuses earlier than normal. Thanks to...
November 16, 2017
Harper Lowery was born prematurely at 29 weeks 6 days, the larger of fraternal twins. A cranial ultrasound performed at 10 days of life revealed a bilateral intraventricular hemorrhage. With blood clots blocking the flow of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), Harper’s head began to enlarge to accomm...
October 17, 2017
When 9-year-old Noah complained of a stomachache, his mother, Susan, attributed it to everything he ate the day before. A few days later Noah went to a pediatrician, who took one look at Noah, touched his stomach and sent them straight to the nearest ER at Memorial Hermann Sugar Land. There, a CT...
October 13, 2017
Picture the bounciest, bubbliest five-year-old you can imagine. Her songs and dance moves come straight from Beyoncé. She loves bright colors and runs to the mirror to check every outfit. Her goal is to be a superstar. And she is a child who was born with spina bifida, one whose immediate future ...
August 3, 2017
“It all happened in less than a minute,” Deepthi Bollu says. “We ran outside and looked around, then ran to the front and side of the house. By then I had a bad feeling, and when we looked in the pool, we saw him at the bottom.” After nearly three minutes of CPR administered according to instruct...
June 28, 2017
At first Debra Johnson didn’t associate her 11-year-old son’s unusual behavior with seizure activity. He would go through periods of seeming spacey, and she couldn't figure the issue out. After an MRI revealed a small tumor in his right temporal lobe, the family was referred to Dr. David Sandberg...
May 31, 2017
Since he first began playing football at age 5, Treveon, now a high school sophomore, has dreamed of playing college ball, maybe even going pro. But in eighth grade, he was temporarily sidelined, when a routine visit to his pediatrician revealed a hump on his upper back. X-rays showed a curvature...
May 31, 2017
MaKayla’s scoliosis diagnosis came as a complete shock. The petite 13-year-old was a cheerleader, tumbled and played competition softball. By all appearances, she was perfectly healthy. Yet, in September 2015, a visit to a chiropractor for a back injury resulting from a trampoline incident ...
March 31, 2017
For some parents, a newborn’s cry can cause distress. But for Marlen and Kevin, hearing their daughter Grace’s first cry brought relief and joy. Grace was born with a congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH), a condition that occurs during fetal development that can lead to severe respiratory and ot...
March 22, 2017
Since Jamie Wright was a child, she has wanted to change the outlook for people who struggle with a diagnosis of hydrocephalus, which is the most common reason some children require brain surgery. Out of every 1,000 babies born in the U.S., about one to two are born with hydrocephalus, a conditi...
February 15, 2017
Kevin and Karla Urrutia were born at term, but as twins they were both underweight – the boy weighing in at 4 pounds 10 ounces and the girl at 4 pounds 15 ounces. “Karla was eating fine after birth, but Kevin had stridor caused by a soft, immature cartilage of the upper larynx that ob...
February 15, 2017
Pediatric otorhinolaryngologist, Sancak Yuksel, M.D., at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital has provided care for Jayda Hector since shortly after she was born in October 2010 at just 26 weeks’ gestation. After 12 trips to the OR at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital, the si...
January 11, 2017
Much of neurology is detective work. Like good sleuthing, successful practice demands profound knowledge, honed investigative skills, persistence and a measure of artistry. In the case of Cristian Serrato, diagnosis and treatment of a challenging disorder required all of these talents and more. U...
December 29, 2016
During a routine well-baby checkup shortly after Thea was born, her pediatrician noted a small red spot on Thea’s temple, adjacent her right eye. Colleen , Thea’s mother, recalls, “Our pediatrician knew immediately that the red spot was a hemangioma, and he told us it would grow...
December 22, 2016
Dominic was only 18-months-old when he followed the family dog out the back door and fell into the family’s hot tub. He was transported to the emergency room at Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital. During his stay, he was put on ECMO, which is an advanced life support treatment for critically il...
November 1, 2016
Three-year-old Leila went to her first ballet class in September 2016, an experience that might have been beyond her reach without the medical skills of Amy Schefler, M.D., FACS, an affiliated ocular oncologist and retinoblastoma specialist at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital’s Te...
October 10, 2016
A caring and informed mother, a knowledgeable physical therapist and an expert in the surgical management of spasticity have transformed the life of eight-year-old Darius Sonia. Born seven weeks early, Darius suffered an intraventricular hemorrhage in the first few days of life – a common occurre...
July 15, 2016
As Kenzie and Ricky attended their routine 18-week ultrasound, they expected everything to go smoothly; however, they received unexpected information about their baby girl, Macy. Their unborn daughter was diagnosed with a unilateral cleft (a split occurring on one side) that extended all the way ...
July 15, 2016
As Sabrina sat at her 16-week checkup, she was expecting her appointment to be ordinary. However, after receiving her ultrasound, she found out her baby girl was diagnosed with a birth defect known as gastroschisis. Shocked and scared about her baby’s health, her obstetrician referred her to The ...
June 8, 2016
When seven-year-old Remmy had occasional shortness of breath and seemed more tired than usual, it never occurred to his parents that he might have a problem with his heart. Patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) is a birth defect that occurs when the baby’s blood vessel known as the ductus arterios...
March 1, 2016
Erinn Brown was 34 weeks pregnant when she realized something was wrong with her baby. An ultrasound showed that the left ventricle of the baby’s heart was very small and nearly nonexistent. Brown’s doctor referred her to The Fetal Center at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital....
February 10, 2016
Jayden and Luke. Two-year-old identical twin boys. They run and wrestle, giggle and converse in their own shared lingo – jibber-jabber only they understand. But Jayden is taller, more robust. Luke wears the same size clothes as the boys’ younger brother Cooper. Each of the twins in his own way is...
December 28, 2015
When sixteen-year-old Hannah Hendricks faced the biggest setback of her life, she showed her grit to be the kind that comes from deep inside, the kind that keeps you going against the odds. And Hannah knows all about beating the odds. On the morning of July 25, 2013, Hannah, an incoming high scho...
November 19, 2015
It was Daniel Turya’s eighth birthday and he couldn’t wait to take his new birthday gift from his parents out for a spin. It was a shiny new bike, and even though he didn’t have a helmet, he was just riding right outside of his apartment doorstep with his buddies. Soon after he got on, he acciden...
September 22, 2015
When Samantha Shine came to TIRR Memorial Hermann Pediatric Outpatient Rehabilitation at the Kirby Glen Center, the 3-year-old was still eating puréed food – very slowly – and was underweight for her age. Six months later, she eats breakfast, lunch and dinner with her family an...
April 28, 2015
As an child, Isabella Colacchio would go through periods of headaches, stomachaches, extreme sensitivity to light and blurry vision. In 2012, Bella was diagnosed with dysautonomia and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, when a neurologist saw her as an inpatient and found a pineal cyst. The Colacchios saw se...
April 16, 2015
After Ezra's family started to notice him getting sick, they sought medical advice before finally ending up at Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital for care. Ezra's rare disease led to him needing a liver transplant. After finding a match, his medical team went into action to perform the transpla...
February 6, 2015
During a routine football practice Jordan suddenly felt dizzy and showed signs that something was wrong. He was immediately taken to Memorial Hermann where affiliated pediatric neurologist Dr. Ian Butler along with neurologist Dr. Nicole Gonzales diagnosed Jordan as having had a stroke. Later aft...
September 22, 2014
In July 2011, three young siblings lost their parents in a tragic car accident on the way home from summer vacation in Colorado. The Berry family was traveling back to Houston when their vehicle was struck head-on by an SUV that had veered into their lane. The two brothers, Peter and Aaron, who w...
September 15, 2014
In July 2011, three young siblings lost their parents in a tragic car accident on the way home from summer vacation. The Berry family was traveling back to Houston when their vehicle was struck head-on by an SUV. The two brothers, Peter and Aaron, sustained serious spinal cord injuries that paral...
June 12, 2014
At 16 months of age, Angela Wrigglesworth was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, a progressive motor neuron disease that causes weakness in the arms, legs and torso. This prevented her from walking and she began using a wheelchair at the age of 5 years. She was admitted to the TIRR Memorial ...
June 9, 2014
Caitlin and Emily may seem like your average identical twin sisters. But at one time in their lives, the twins shared something much more significant and they have the visible scars to prove it: Emily and Caitlin were born conjoined. Conjoined twins are an extreme rarity, only occurring once in e...
May 20, 2014
Daniella Coca’s son Anthony was born with both a cleft lip and palate. Coca was five months pregnant when she received the diagnosis after a 3-D ultrasound, which afforded her and Anthony’s father several months to meet John Teichgraeber, MD, and his team, determine a plan of action and better pr...
May 2, 2014
Pediatric surgeons have the ability to bring smiles to patients and their families. Dr. John Teichgraeber, director of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery in the Department of Pediatric Surgery, recently brought smiles and positive outcomes to patients in Mexico as part of a medica...
April 24, 2014
Last December, an eight-member neurosurgical team extended their practice beyond the walls of Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital and McGovern Medical School at UTHealth to Haiti, where they spent four days on a medical mission to treat children with hydrocephalus. “Like all mission trips, we ha...
April 14, 2014
Savanna and her twin brother, Austin, were happy, healthy babies, but at about 6 weeks old, Savanna began having what episodes – short periods during which she would be nonresponsive and withdrawn. Nine months later, the Lininger’s made the decision to move to Houston to be closer to ...
December 17, 2013
When Johanna Quezada-Ventura discovered she was pregnant with identical twins, she was both shocked and excited. As a mother of a 4-year-old daughter, she anticipated yet another uncomplicated pregnancy similar to her first, and didn’t think too much about the risk factors associated with i...
December 17, 2013
At my 22-week ultrasound, the baby’s positioning made it difficult to get a clear image of the baby’s organs; however, we could clearly see that we were expecting a boy. Weeks later, at my 34-week ultrasound, my physician requested another ultrasound be performed so that better images...
March 26, 2013
As an infant, Moya was diagnosed with a global developmental delay and, as a toddler, she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. She was delayed in movements and milestones that a toddler normally accomplishes, such as sitting up, standing and saying a few clear words. Moya had received therapy befor...
March 26, 2013
In November 2008, Brittany and her family were moving from College Station to Katy when they had an accident on a two-lane road. Brittany, 11, hit the roof of the van and sustained a T5 spinal cord injury, several broken bones, a collapsed lung and other internal injuries. She was rushed to Memor...
March 26, 2013
In November 2008, 2-year-old Curran started treatment for a language delay. When he started treatment, he was nonverbal and communicated only by using hand gestures and vocalizations. The speech-language pathologist suggested Curran’s family encourage English as his primary language, and after pr...
February 5, 2013
Laura and James were unloading hay from a lowboy trailer near their barn when the horses trotted up and began to nibble at the bales. Standing on the trailer, their five-year-old daughter Tristen, a rodeo rider, began waving her arms to shoo them away. Spooked by the motion, the horses turned to ...
December 23, 2012
Eleven-year-old Lexie Bolds was having fun visiting a friend in Jasper, Texas, when she was involved in an accident that left her with a broken neck and arm. She injured vertebrae C2-C4 and injured her spinal cord at C4. Rushed to Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center by Life Flight® helicopt...
October 26, 2012
Faith’s story begins before she was born. But unlike others, her history was complicated by a prenatal diagnosis of myelomeningocele – spina bifida – at the age of 20 weeks. A complex and permanently disabling birth defect, spina bifida involves incomplete development of a porti...